The Internet loves a list. After all, what does an Internet list offer?
I have created a list to answer this very question!
The ten functions of a list on the Internet!
10. It organizes all relevant information into easily digestible morsels.
9. It reduces complexity.
8. It loudly announces what the reader is in for.
7. It suggests completeness and comprehensiveness. After all, if there were more to tell, surely there would be another item on the list!
6. It affords simple comparatives for judgement. If, for instance, my item is not on the list I am reading, then I know that it is not a good list, and they shall hear of it vociferously in the comment section! Or, conversely, if number two on the list is my pet list item? Well and good, the list is surely a winner.
5. It is authoritative. Look at all these carefully numbered items. They must know what they're talking about to list it all so plainly.
4. Ranked, it allows for endless comparative musing, giving us the illusion of being thoughtful, ruminative people.
3. It creates tension. After all, if "creating tension" is number "three" on the list, what, by god, could number "one" be?
2. It dazzles with the promise of absolute truth and certainty, which we all long for. And if ultimately it cheats us and leaves us empty and hungry and unconvinced, well, too late, we have read it. We have engaged with it. And we are on to the next list somewhere else!
And so with all this in mind I have set down to rank, in a list, all of the Christmas Markets this year in The Twin Cities, or Saint Minneapolis. My lovely wife and I have been racing across Saint Minneapolis every weekend chasing down even the most obscure little Christmas Markets, and I am here to rank all 65 of them from worst to best!
Or I meant to, maybe I even mean to. We still have a couple of weekends to go, and we haven't yet seen them all.
But the truth is that none of them are all that great so they're all sort of roughly tied for first so far.
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If you were wondering, yes, you should comment. Not only does it remind me that I must write in intelligible English because someone is actually reading what I write, but it is also a pleasure for me since I am interested in anything you have to say.
I respond to pretty much every comment. It's like a free personalized blog post!
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